The Daily Routine, the Beginning of a Wise and Compassionate Life

In Buddhist practice, the daily routine (ilgwa, 日課) means the practice you set for yourself and carry out every day. Making offerings and bowing, chanting the sutras, sitting in Seon meditation, and looking at your own body and mind all belong to the daily routine.

Yet a practitioner's daily routine is not only the practice done at set times. It is also how you live every moment you meet in everyday life, from rising in the morning until you fall asleep at night.

Buddhism has a saying, ilil si hoil (日日是好日): "every day is a good day."

Every day being a good day does not mean that only good things happen each day or that there are no difficulties. There are joyful days and painful days, days when things go as you wish and days when they do not. Whatever situation you meet, what matters is not being pulled too far by it, and living while looking rightly at your own mind.

The past has already gone, and the future has not yet come. While you regret what has passed and worry about what has not arrived, it is easy to miss the present moment in which you are actually living.

The only time you can truly live is now. So how you spend this moment is what matters.

When you live one moment well, the day becomes good; when you live each day well, the week becomes good. In this way it becomes a month, a year, ten years, and forms a whole life.

This flow of life is not limited to this lifetime alone. It can also be seen from the view of conditions and karma that continue through many lives, lifetime after lifetime. The mind you give rise to now and the actions you take now become important conditions that shape the life to come.

Today, society has become far more abundant and convenient than in the past through advances in science and technology. But competition has grown fiercer, and anxiety about the future and psychological pressure have grown with it.

People strive endlessly to learn more, own more, and succeed faster. Striving to improve is important. But if, along the way, you compare yourself with others, feel anxious about what you have not yet achieved, and cannot feel content with what you already have, life inevitably becomes more painful.

The more such an age is, the more meaningful Buddhist practice becomes.

Practice is not leaving reality to look for a special world. It is looking at your own mind right where you live, doing what needs to be done with sincerity, and making effort not to be swayed by greed, hatred, and delusion.

Taking good care of your daily routine does not stop at getting a lot done or completing everything you planned. It means working sincerely when you work, treating people warmly when you meet them, judging wisely in difficult situations, and being aware of it when afflictions arise in your mind.

Sometimes you will make mistakes and fail. Even then, if you can look back at yourself and move again in the right direction, that day too becomes a precious time of practice.

Wisdom grows from seeing your own mind and life rightly. Compassion is practiced, on the basis of that wisdom, by treating yourself and others warmly.

If you look at your own mind in every moment and hold your daily routine dear, you can live a little more peacefully and wisely, even amid fierce competition and anxiety.

Days gather into a whole life, and the mind and actions of each moment gather to make your life.

So do not wait only for happiness in the distant future; live today well.

Yesterday has already gone, and tomorrow has not yet come. To live this very moment wisely and compassionately is practice itself, and the true meaning of every day being a good day.